


Matchmaker

by Prawnperson



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: A little projection onto this dead German pilot, Bisexual Alison (Ghosts TV 2019), Capvers is mentioned, Cheeky Nandos with the Coopers, Discussions of War, Discussions of nazism, F/M, German, Give some love to party hat guy also, Gratuitous use of italics, Helmut likes plants/gardening because I say so, Improbable Events, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Matchmaking, Mike Cooper supremacy, Other ghosts are mentioned - Freeform, Part of the cinematic universe these two have in my head, Queen Songs, as a treat, google translate, very brief but enough for it to be tagged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:42:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28739703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prawnperson/pseuds/Prawnperson
Summary: Alison comes back to the penthouse.She tells Mike that, as much as she loves the ghosts, she desperately needs a break. To teach them a lesson, more than anything. Mike’s family will be able to handle the house for a few months, and she has a sneaking suspicion they’ll get a newly papered hallway in with the bargain. She knows a hotel won’t cut it, even a five star one, on the off chance they find some guy with his kidneys cut out lounging in their bathtub when all the other rooms are booked
Relationships: Alison/Mike (Ghosts TV 2019), Helmut/Wolfgang (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 38





	Matchmaker

**Author's Note:**

> Longest one shot I've ever written and it's this....Anyway, enjoy! Hopefully!

Alison comes back to the penthouse.

She tells Mike that, as much as she loves the ghosts, she desperately needs a break. To teach them a lesson, more than anything. Mike’s family will be able to handle the house for a few months, and she has a sneaking suspicion they’ll get a newly papered hallway in with the bargain. She knows a hotel won’t cut it, even a five star one, on the off chance they find some guy with his kidneys cut out lounging in their bathtub when all the other rooms are booked. It would be just like the thing, she says. The idea had come to her when counting up the recent cash they had made from summer weddings, even after setting aside funds for repairs, emergencies and some poppy money. 

Mike knows there were ghosts at the penthouse, too, but assumes Alison has her reasons and leaves it at that. 

They move in on the 15th of July. They bring some stuff from the house, sneak out before any of the ghosts wake up—Alison left a note between the pages of Kitty’s romantic novella—and have the place ready to go. 

It’s a lovely apartment, it really is. All modern fixtures and sleek marble. Mike is thrilled at the prospect of getting to bathe in the large white bathtub without having to wear bathing shorts on the off chance someone he can’t see decides to play the voyeur. Alison hands him some towels, draws back the balcony curtains, and steps out. 

The ghosts their don’t seem to believe their eyes. They wave at her, more tentatively than the last time, with one of them mouthing ‘Hallo.’ at her. She waves back. The ghosts go into hysterics. 

After a good five minutes or so of this, which feels like longer but isn’t because a timer on her phone goes off about her medication, they begin to settle. There isn’t exactly the outpouring of babbling she had expected, but rather a silence that is punctuated only by the sound of Mike singing an off-key rendition of ‘My girl’ from the bathroom. 

Finally, one of the ghosts speaks up. 

“Wie Ist ihr name?”

Alison has never been a whiz at languages, and she doesn’t even think they did German at school, but she can recognise the name part. 

“I’m Alison. Alison Cooper.”

She points in the direction of the bathroom.

“That’s my husband, Mike.”

A beat, then two nods.

And with that, she goes back inside.

———

The next morning, Alison awakens feeling alarmingly refreshed. The closest she’s got to worrying about the ghosts had been overhearing them on the phone call to Mike’s mum over dinner. Only Fanny had stayed until the end to criticise. Everyone else had gotten bored of it pretty quickly. 

Mike gets up to make her tea that thankfully isn’t from the hose this time, and they settle in for a cuddle. It’s nice to not have to rush or see anyone about wedding venues or worry about Robin messing with the lights. It’s just her, and Mike, and the two dead guys at the window. 

In all honesty, Alison had thought they’d be sort of fun to work with. She’s played about with the idea of becoming a full-time ghost helper, despite how often she gets annoyed with her bunch. Her reasoning is that a total absence of those in limbo now feels too quiet for her liking, whereas she doesn’t think she could handle having to deal with any more wandering about beside her. No, these guys are good. There’s a pretty thick IKEA curtain seperating her and Mike from the undead. 

There’s a bit more than cuddling, and then they get dressed for the day.

———

The ghosts jump a bit whenever she and Mike step out onto the balcony together. They have a Nando’s takeout to have for tea, a decent enough supply of snacks, and a MacBook that has a fairly reliable mic. She knows Google translate maybe isn’t the best in the world when it comes to breaking language barriers, but she’s pretty sure she’d rather be dead than trying to use a dictionary or write down all those little umlauts by hand. This seems like a pretty safe bet. Plus, this way, Mike will be able to enjoy this too, in the loosest possible sense of the word. She taps the mic. 

“Ok, so, when I say something, this will say it to you, and you can do the same.”

The text comes on screen in English first, then German. The monotone voice repeats the question. One of the ghosts gasps. 

“What did they say?”

“Nothing yet. One of them went ‘Ah.’.”

Mike leans over to watch the screen as well, and the little blue circle turning on it.

_What is that?_

He flinches away a little. Alison doesn’t blame him. 

“Oh, uh, it’s a computer. Look, it’s not really important. You remember us, yeah?”

 _Alison! Mike!  
Yellow coat!_

Maybe Alison had been doing this thing a disservice. It’s doing a pretty good job of pulling apart words being spoken together. 

“Can you talk one at a time, please? It helps.” 

Mike is torn between unpacking dinner and watching the screen. The ghosts are torn between watching him and speaking. She finds it sort of funny, in a macabre kind of way. 

“Ok, how about this one, who are you?”

 _Pilot Helmut.  
Pilot Wolfgang._

———

Dinner goes surprisingly smoothly. As expected, Helmut and Wolfgang are relentlessly curious as to what they’re eating, questions Mike actually answers when he isn’t too busy being freaked out. Alison tells him what they’re doing in an attempt to give him a better image. 

“Did you guys like a Nando’s back then?”

_What?  
No  
They didn’t have them_

“Wow, wait, when are you from? I thought you were a Virgin Atlantic or something.”

Alison cringes. The ghosts seem to squirm uncomfortably. 

“The war, Mike.”

“But...ah. Oh. Oh, man. That’s bad.”

_Yes  
It’s bad  
Please don’t go away_

———

Alison wakes up at seven the next morning and goes out to find two ghosts wrapped in a knot. She coughs lightly, wakes them with a start, and turns the screen of her MacBook towards them. 

As the war documentary starts up, she wonders how Mike’s parents are getting on, and wether or not they are actually putting on World of Tanks every day as instructed. She doubts it, somehow, and wonders what an earful she’ll get when she goes back home. Even worse, if he found out what she’s doing now. He’d probably go and live in the gatehouse. 

Even though it is Surrey, she decides the laptop is probably safe enough left outside twenty eight stories up, and leaves the thing on auto play. 

———

_Are you going to leave?  
That was horrible  
How many planes was it?  
We’re sorry  
Why did you tell us?  
We never knew  
Is it still the same?  
Why didn’t they tell us?  
Can we fix it?_

Alison sighs. Maybe she should have risked a bathtub ghost in a Hilton Hotel. 

———

About two hours elapse by the time every question gets answered. A few tears are shed in this space, and Alison notices one of the ghosts, maybe Helmut, fidgeting and rocking in place. She makes a mental note.

They look exhausted, as exhausted as Alison feels, but most of her lingering suspicions have been debunked. It seems as though a good long time sitting with your thoughts will force a person to face some pretty upsetting facts, and she no longer fears she’ll have to cut the vacation short. 

———

Mike spends the next day having an awkward chat. He seems determined to power through despite not having any idea of what to say, until he mentions the weird plants on the other side of the balcony. 

_We think they’re patio roses! White roses symbolise innocence and happiness. You can put them in sand or clay or chalk even loam! They have no fragrance but they bloom from early summer way into autumn. Double flowers!_

Alison is sure this one is Helmut, beaming wildly and twisting where he sits. Wolfgang is giving him a very odd, soft sort of smile. Curiouser and curiouser.

“What about that one?”

Alison points to a slightly withered looking branch stuck into a pot. While the happy chatter resumes, Mike taps her gently on the shoulder.

“So, like, does the laptop belong to them now?”

———

Alison’s period cramps rather rudely decide she needs to wake up at half three in the morning to go and hack up the contents of her stomach. It’s horrible, miserable, and now all she wants to do is make a cup of tea and a hot water bottle and go to sleep in a painkiller induced coma. However, as she shuffles out to put the kettle on, she hears something.

It’s humming, and it’s coming from the balcony. 

As carefully and as quietly as she can, she peeks behind the curtain. Helmut’s head is in Wolfgang’s lap, eyes shut, while Wolfgang hums. His hands are stroking gently over the back of his head, and it isn’t entirely clear wether or not he’s sleeping. She feels quite like she shouldn’t be watching it. 

Wolfgang’s eyes dart up, suddenly, and Alison wonders if his blood would run cold if he had any. It certainly seems like it would.

———

_It’s not what you think, really  
Please don’t tell anyone  
He’s my friend, please_

Helmut is still asleep, and while Alison still feels nauseous, she’s prepared to put it aside to deal with whatever this is. It’s sort of amusing, honestly, like the drama with Kitty when she found out that snakes were real. 

“It’s fine, really! Look, I totally get it, I was friends with Mike for ages before we got together. I mean, we weren’t friends, but I knew his friend. Well, I say friend, he worked at a cash and carry—“

_What?_

“Look, it’s totally cool. I used to be in love with the girl who sat next to me in primary school, stuff like that is powerful.” 

_I am not in love with him_

He sounds upset. 

“What? No. Really?”

 _I am not in love with him_

“Ok, mardy. I heard you the first time. Keep your goggles on.”

———

It takes a little while longer for Alison to remember why that seemed like a big deal. She’s curled up on the couch when it hits her, waiting for Mike to return with Galaxy and a heating pad and her heart, which is undoubtedly in his possession after he held her hair out of her eyes during her second vomiting session of the morning. 

She remembers hearing some awful stuff in history class in second year at school, and kids giggling in the back and feeling odd and uncomfortable and squirmy when the teacher didn’t stop them. She remembers hearing more about it from the Captain’s war documentaries and watching him bristle in the same uncomfortable way. She remembers seeing pictures in the library books at university, all horrible in their own awful way, grainy and scrubbed out. 

She wonders what it would be like to live through that. 

Her stomach clenches for a different reason.

———

“So, wait, the ghost is in love with his pal?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Did you take the wrong stuff, Ali?”

“Mike!”

Alison has the ghosts distracted with a subtitled version of Bridget Jones‘s diary which she suspects Mike also wanted quite badly to watch, but there are now more pressing matters to attend to. 

“Mike, we have to do something. It’s so sad. And, I went on Wikipedia, and I read up all this awful stuff, and now it’s like, surely we have to help? For love?” 

“Ali,”

Alison huffs. 

“We’re supposed to be on vacation, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And you chose the place with those two dudes because they specifically wouldn’t be in our way?”

“Yeah, but—“

“But nothing. If they’ve been sat out there for hundreds of years, us being here isn’t gonna push them, is it? The last thing you can do is force it.”

“Not hundreds of years, Mike.”

He kisses her head.

———

A bit of interference can’t hurt. It’s not even interference, really. If Alison heads out to the nearest garden centre the second Aunt Flo leaves town, who’s to say? And if she plays some cheesy forties love songs she distinctly remembers the Captain tapping his foot to while she arranges the planters on the balcony, surely that’s just her right as mistress of the penthouse.

 _This is a nice song  
Are those sunflowers?  
Wolfgang!_

“Oh, yeah, Mike and I are going out tonight. Do you guys want something on?” 

_What’s good?_

———

They get home at twelve at night. Neither of them pay any mind to the fact that the laptop is still outside, still rattling through Mike’s inordinately long mostly Queen “get the ghosts together” playlist. They have more important things to worry about. 

———

_I love him_

“Yeah?”

_I don’t know what to do_

“Tell him. He seems to like you.” 

_He isn’t like that_

“How do you know? Have you asked?”

_No, I mean  
Not me_

“That’s stupid.”

 _I know_

“Well, it’s your choice, but...well, you have this chance, you know? I know someone like you who’ll never be able to do this.”

_You do?_

“I do. He was in love, like you, and he never said so before time ran out, and now he’ll never get to. Same time, different place.”

_I am so scared of ruining this_

“So was he. It doesn’t do anyone much good.”

———

“They’re showing this great film. It’s about this guy, and his—“

“Oh, are we not doing ghost stuff tonight?”

Alison gives Mike an incredulous look, still trying to close one of her earrings. 

“Woah, what happened to not interfering?”

“I don’t want to interfere! I just thought this was what we did now.”

She laughs, leans against him for a moment. 

“No, you were right. One of them’s got more issues than Vogue and the other one doesn’t seem to have any idea. I can’t even talk to them alone unless the other one’s asleep.” 

“Well, let’s turn the lights on for them and go. They don’t literally have to be in the dark.” 

———

Alison goes out the next morning to check on her sunflower, because she’s actually grown pretty fond of it and she wants to take some pictures for Kitty. She doesn’t expect to be greeted by two canoodling ghosts who don’t even seem to notice she’s there for a good ten seconds. When they finally do, they seem petrified.

“Alison!”

Wolfgang yelps, bundling Helmut against his chest as though this will somehow hide the fact they were just engaged in a lip lock. She waves at them, quite serene, and goes back to checking the soil around her stalk. 

“It looks good. Have you been talking to it?” 

There are a few words exchanged that Alison can’t understand, but she can make a pretty good guess at what they’re about. 

With a giggle, Helmut nods.

———

“What, how? When?”

“I guess your mostly Queen playlist must have been the oil the cogs needed…which sounded an awful lot like our road trip mix.”

“It won your heart.”

Alison groans loudly. There is a fit of laughter from behind the balcony’s curtain. She flicks onto Netflix. 

———

A few days pass. Alison is certain the ghosts would appreciate the privacy, and moreover, she now feels fully able to enjoy her time off. There are a few more films she’d like to see, and Mike and her have some pretty cute dates planned that have been sitting on the back burner since she first fell—or got pushed—out of that window. It’s nice, really nice. In fact, when she goes out onto the balcony, she wonders why those so-called ghost whisperers on TV make so much fuss about the spirits being tormented or whatever. Most of hers just seem to be confused. 

Helmut is running his thumb back and forth over Wolfgang’s knuckles with a look on his face Alison would probably call besotted if Kitty were here to benefit. 

“You guys alright up here?”

_Thank you Alison  
Yes_

“Good.” 

_Can we ask you something?_

“Oh, sure, shoot.”

She scoots onto one of the balcony seats, cross legged. The ghosts share a look. 

_Is this allowed now?_  
_Will it ever be?_  
_What will we do when you go?_

Alison sits up. 

“Is what allowed?”

_This_

They gesture between themselves, both of them looking a bit like they’re ready to defend themselves in the unlikely and frankly ridiculous event she attempts to attack two people who are already dead.

“Yeah. It has been for ages, in…lots of places.”

_Even in Germany?_

“Yeah. Since 1969, if you’re interested. I think they legalised marriage over there, too, in, like….2017?”

_Please don’t tease us_

“I’m not. Honest.”

She smiles.

———

They stay for another month before Alison begins to grow homesick. She’s starting to miss the chatter every morning and the constant questioning from Kitty and even the various chastisements on wearing ripped jeans and forgetting the names of anti-tank guns. She has an inkling Mike is starting to feel the same, since they’ve watched Poltergeist three times over, even if going back means he won’t be able to ever bathe in absolutely assured privacy. 

So they pack up. It’s easily done, even though Mr. Houses doesn’t seem too happy about the whole thing. Alison isn’t that surprised, they haven’t been here for all that long in estate agent time, but she’ll consider it payback for taking them to so many blasted haunted houses in the first place.

The pilots are upset to learn of their departure, to see them go, taking everything with them. Alison feels sorry for them, but she has her own ghosts to take care of back home, and she feels as though she’s done as much as she can do now. She says she’ll try to angle a visit some day if she can. 

“Auf Wiedersehen, Alison.”

“Bye bye.”

———

Kitty is so excited to have them back that she forgets she isn’t able to touch them and rushes through them in an attempt at a hug, making herself ill. She demands to hear all about their travels and any eligible men they met. The house, as expected, has been subject to the hand of Mike’s parents and looks alarmingly neat and tidy, with Robin bemoaning the absence wriggly things in the attic. Alison gets an earful from the Captain and Fanny before Pat can settle them down, and she promises to try and appease them all with a good dose of Friends. 

Alison doesn’t know if she’ll ever see the other ghosts again. She doesn’t know if the Captain will ever get out of his sulk before the next month. She doesn’t know if she had any hand in the proceedings that transpired at the penthouse at all. She doesn’t know if she should have just left it all as it was and expected it all to carry on.

But she does know that all is a bit brighter somewhere, for someone, and she wonders if that guy with the party hat would object to having some visitors.

**Author's Note:**

> Does anyone wanna know what's on Mike's playlist? lol


End file.
